Perpetual Bachelor, Famous Ladies Man
by InspectorSpacetime
Summary: Charlie Swan attempts to solve a string of violent murders in Forks, Washington in noir thriller. Part One of the "Blood and Moustache" Trilogy.
1. Chapter 1

Rain.

When you enter "The Rainiest City" into Google, your first answer will be Forks. That rain can wash away anything. Footsteps. Tire tracks. Blood.

The nights in Forks are darker than the most depraved man's soul. Whenever I look outside my office window at that inky blackness, so black no streetlight could ever penetrate it, it reminds me of the things I've lost. The _friends _I've lost. Friends that have died, friends that have left, friends that have simply… gone away.

But friends, or lack thereof, won't get you far in a town like this, on a night like this. What gets you far is a keen eye and a hard spirit. A sheriff's badge doesn't hurt either.

* * *

><p>It was a heavy rain the night I got the first call, the kind of rain that makes your moustache stand on end. The flashing red and blue lights from my police car reflected ominously in the puddles. I'd seen that before, that flashing, and had never given it much mind. But tonight? Tonight, it made me pause. That red light. It flashed like blood.<p>

Deputy Kyle approached, his face drawn. "Some kids found the body outside Carver Cafe. White female, long brown hair. Think it might be a bear attack?"'

"No," I said, gazing past his shoulder into the dark of the forest. "A night like tonight? This ain't no animal."

Normally, a description like that would send chills down my spine, but my little girl was in Jacksonville with her good-for-nothing boyfriend. For once, I was glad she was with him. Anywhere but here.

The body was splayed out like a butterfly in a glass case. Her arms were stretched out, cut open from wrist to shoulder. Even in the night, I could see her bones, pale as moonlight. They reflected the lights from the cruisers. I had to look away.

"D'you think it's a suicide?" Kyle stammered.

"Not with the way she's cut open. I don't care how determined you are. At some point you have to stop. She didn't stop."

Kyle looked around, scratching his head beneath his hat. "Where's all the blood? Do you think she was dumped?"

I looked around. Kyle was right, there was no blood.

"I expect the rain has washed away most of the evidence," I said to him. "I guess we'll never know if she was killed in this location or not."

Kyle nodded grimly. I looked closer at him and noticed that his eyes had the glassy, scared look of a weaker man.

"Is this your first homicide?" I asked, putting my hand on his shoulder.

He shook his head. "Second," he croaked. "But it doesn't seem to get any easier."

"Never does, son," I said. "Never does."

He smiled a little, his eyes now thankful and clear.

"After this," I told him, "We'll go get a couple of Rainiers and talk about whatever you want. But right now, we've got to do this lady her justice."

I looked away and followed the water flowing down the street to the storm drain a few yards off. By the metal grating, I could see something shining. I walked over, my boots sounding strangely loud on the pavement on this quiet night. I bent down. It was an umbrella. Pink in color. Innocent. The umbrella of somebody too young to die.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my last latex glove. It almost escaped me, but there was a tiny ring of red on the top of the umbrella. It wasn't decoration, at least, not any I was familiar with. It was blood, and it was fresh.

"Sheriff! We've got something!"

I looked away and back towards the crime scene. Another deputy was running out from behind the diner, something clasped close to him under his umbrella to shield it from the rain. I walked forward to meet him.

"What is it?"

"Handbag," he said breathlessly, "with the vic's ID inside."

He reached inside the pink bag and pulled out a small wallet. I flipped it open and struggled to see the lettering in the dim light with my aging eyes. Nineteen years old. Still a child.

"Deputy," I said, handing the wallet back to him. "Do you know what's strange about this handbag?"

"It's in the dumpster, and our vic is out here?"

"Partly," I said. "More that there isn't any blood on it and it's bone dry. I think our vic threw it in there before she was attacked."

"Why would she do that?" The deputy was bewildered."

"Son, this is a homicide investigation, not a game of Wheel of Fortune."


	2. Chapter 2

The atmosphere in the office the next day was palpably depressed. For an outsider, Forks would have been that quintessential small down where everybody knew everybody else and there was no bad blood. But those who live in small towns know that the smaller the space, the bigger the secrets. And for Forks, the secrets had been growing.

I'd gone over the case photos several times that morning, looking for something, _anything _that would tell me more about this case. The photographs were like frosted windows into somebody else's damaged life. They felt distant, far away. Like stills from a television show.

I leaned back in my chair and shut the folder in front of me. It was sunny out, a complete departure from the previous night's downpour. Sunny days didn't happen often, and the warmth on my face felt lovely, like the caress of a beautiful woman.

Kyle startled me out of my reverie.

"Hey, boss," Kyle said, walking over to me. "I just got a call. Doctor Cullen can't come in today, so Seattle sent down one of their finest to take a look at the body."

"When will he be here?"

"Now."

Kyle gestured towards the the door, where a large frame was silhouetted against the blinding sun. It wasn't until my eyes adjusted to the contrast that I was able to see him clearly. He was tall and broad shouldered, the kind of guy most women would fall over themselves for. His face was strong with a chiseled jaw. Just like Doctor Cullen, he looked more like some sort of male model than somebody who'd stick his hands into a dead man's chest day after day.

The man strode into the room and hung his hat on the hook beside the door.

"Hello!" he said cheerfully. "I'm Todd Fairchild, medical examiner. You must be the sheriff."

"Yes sir," I said, shaking his hand. "My name's Charlie."

"Well, Charlie, should we go take a look at this body?"

* * *

><p>"She definitely didn't kill herself."<p>

Todd dropped his tools in the tray next to the autopsy trailer with a loud clang and shrugged his shoulders. "There's no way she'd be able to get such a clean cut on the second arm if she'd already cut the first one that deeply."

"I didn't figure she did," I responded, gazing at the shape of the body beneath the bluish-white sheet covering it. Her.

"Obviously, the cause of death is exsanguination. She bled out in minutes." Todd pulled back the sheet from her face. Even though I'd see many dead bodies, it never stopped shocking me to see how pale they all were.

"Any evidence of sexual assault?"

"None," he said to me. "None at all. And no defensive wounds, either. Whoever attacked her didn't beat her, and she didn't fight. There's not a bruise on her body."

A shiver, completely unbidden, ran down my spine. The murder was so strange, so ritualistic. Even the murders we'd had two years ago, though many in numbers, were less strange than this. Those were brutal and fast. This was cult-like.

Todd shook his head and with a snap, pulled off one of his latex gloves. "I know what you're thinking."

"Really now."

"Yeah," he said. "You're thinking that some crazy religious cult did this."

"Maybe I am."

"Maybe I am, too."

We looked at each other and the extreme seriousness between us made us both crack up. We stood there, gasping for breath with our laughter, over the poor girl's body. After a few moments, he shook his head.

"I don't know, Charlie. It could be a cult, but if you don't mind me doing your detective work for you, it seems more likely to me that it's a jealous boyfriend who decided to kill her brutally to make us think down those lines. Clever little snot."

Though Todd's reasoning made sense, it didn't sit right with me. I couldn't exactly say why, but as I left the room and went back towards my office, only one thing was on my mind:

This wouldn't be the last one.


End file.
